suddenly, the burr thrown across her voice heavily because of the
passion in her tones. "I came to you a broken instrument--useless
for ever, perhaps--unfit for all I knew of life unless you healed
me, and now--now I can make things and do things--a pie and a good
one, bread to feed and the butter thereto, and to-day two halves of
a pair of trousers, no the halves of two pairs of trousers. What
matter if I never sing again?" She stretched her white arm across
the table and looked over the head of the sleeping baby straight
into his eyes. Hers were soft with tears, and a divine shyness that
seemed to question him.

He lifted the white hand, with its pink palm upward, gently into his
own brown one, and placed the tip of one of his fingers on a tiny
red scar on her forefinger.

"Do you know the story the drop of blood I took from this prick this
morning told?" he asked with his eyes shining into hers. "A gain of
over thirty percent in red corpuscles in less than a month. Yes, I
admit it; Mother is building, but when she has you ready--I'm going
to give it back to you, the wonderful voice. I don't know why I
know, but I do."

"And I don't know why I know that you will--but I do," she answered
with lowered voice and eyes. "When all the others tried I knew they
would fail. The horrible thought clutched at my throat always, and
there seemed no help. I don't feel it now at all. I'm too busy," she
added with a catch in her laugh and a sudden mist in her eyes.

"Mother's treatment again," he laughed as he laid her hand gently
back on the table.